Storm Warning
by Submechanophobia
Summary: Samantha Novak couldn't help but wonder if this was what staring into the eye of a hurricane was like. After all, there are only two ways of surviving hurricanes; seeking refuge, or becoming a storm yourself. – "What scares you about this?" – "That I know it won't be enough." Negan/OC.
1. Message

Storm Warning

 **Summary: Samantha Novak couldn't help but wonder if this was what staring into the eye of a hurricane was like. After all, there are only two ways of surviving hurricanes; seeking refuge, or becoming a storm yourself. – "What scares you about this?" – "That I know it won't be enough." Negan/OC.**

 **Rating: Eventual M for disturbing content, language, and sexual scenarios. C'mon, it's Negan.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters associated with the franchise.**

 **Surprise! New story. Time bounces around a bit in this one, but I hope it makes sense to you. This was surprisingly fun to write.**

* * *

Chapter 1: Message

"I trust you. Trust us."

Rick didn't trust easily. Everything about this situation at surface level screamed at Rick not to trust him, trust _them_. An ironic pseudonym that played off his long hair and beard. His apparent ability to escape from restraints and locked rooms and appear, like an apparition, requesting 'to talk'. The man stole the box truck right from under his and Daryl's noses, and then caused them to sink all the supplies in a pond.

Jesus was trouble. That was for _damn_ sure.

Anyone else, on any other day, Rick would have put a bullet between their eyes and then gone back to bed with Michonne. But he didn't. Maybe it was because Rick recognized that Jesus didn't slit their throats while they slept and possibly had something worth risking his own life to talk to him about. Maybe it was the fact that he introduced himself as Jesus and subconsciously, Rick remembered the quieter days when Lori would convince him to spend a Sunday morning in church. Maybe it was God that made his finger freeze from pulling the trigger. Maybe Rick had just been in a more forgiving mood since he had gotten laid hours before the whispered, unwelcome, awakening.

Whatever it had been, whether an act of God or Rick's dick telling him to 'chill out a sec', caused them to be propelled towards the Hilltop.

Finding Jesus' people along the way, one of which included a Dr. Harlan Carson, made Rick feel more secure in their appearance at Hilltop. They had more leverage and incentive for Gregory to cooperate. He wasn't entirely sure how this interaction would go, but Rick would bet that either way, they would come out on top.

Rick listened as one of them – Freddie, was it? – babbled at Jesus about a vision of his deceased wife that he saw in the moment Abraham was about to run his brain through with a knife. His hand tightened on the steering wheel as he remembered a time that felt like centuries ago. A white dress and long, perfectly groomed and styled, rich brown hair. Dancing just out of his reach at the prison. Rick didn't like that he could relate to Freddie on that level.

A warm hand squeezed his unoccupied one comfortingly, and Rick sent a sidelong glance to the woman sitting in the passenger seat. His grip loosened on the steering wheel. Michonne could always tell when he needed her, even before their newly discovered relationship.

She was the ubiquitous rock that he needed.

"Are you the only one at Hilltop that's medically trained?" Glenn's interested voice broke over the hushed tones of Jesus attempting to comfort Freddie.

Rick glanced into the rear-view mirror at them. With Maggie being pregnant and Dr. Carson revealing that he was an Obstetrician before the world ended, Rick couldn't help the small swell of hope burn its way up his abdomen.

"Officially, yes," Harlan replied, and Rick heard the hesitation in the man's voice before he continued. "We used to have a nurse here that worked in maternity before. Luckily, she helped teach some other resident's a few things before she was taken from us, so I'm not all alone in this."

 _Before she was taken from us._

Rick frowned at the doctor's choice of words, not entirely clear what he meant. Was that just a poor euphemism for death? Something about the sad, verging on bitter look that now decorated Jesus' face in the rear-view mirror made Rick question if the nurse was dead.

It just made him more interested in speaking to Gregory.

And now, standing in front of the Hilltop gate, between guns and spears from opposite groups, holding Rick's gaze levelly and confidently, Rick felt compelled to trust Jesus.

Waving his family to put their weapons down, Rick just hoped that they were walking towards opportunity and not disappointment.

* * *

Rick trusted Jesus. The same could not be said about Gregory. From the moment that the man had sauntered out, interrupting Rick and arrogantly commanding that they 'wash up' before he would speak to them, Rick hated him. Hated that the moron thought that he had control over Rick, standing in front of him with suspenders and a fake smile.

Rick saw an opportunity to take control when Ethan stabbed Gregory, so he did. They were returning to Alexandria with food and crops whether Gregory agreed to trade with them or not, and Rick didn't mind sending a message to the people of Hilltop that they weren't to be fucked with.

He didn't feel particularly patient in that moment, but abided by Jesus' wishes for him to wait while Dr. Carson stitched Gregory up.

"It'd be easier if I had another set of hands," the physician prompted Jesus, accompanied by a sidelong, almost expectant glance as he returned to the history museum that housed them. "Sam's stitches were always neater than mine."

"Well, she's not here," Jesus quickly retorted, his tone forcibly light, before he followed Dr. Carson. Rick's eyebrows raised slightly at the masked defensiveness. The question was pushed to the back of his mind when the name 'Negan' enveloped him once more.

It was a message from Negan.

Jesus wasn't gone long before he returned and explained that Gregory would be fine. Not that Rick gave a shit. He patiently answered their questions about Negan and what Jesus described as a group called 'The Saviors', along with the deal that was formed between communities.

Half of everything.

"What do you get in return?" Glenn asked calmly from his position against the bookshelf, arms crossed and contemplative.

"They don't attack this place," Jesus' arms came up in a shrug. "They don't kill us."

Simple problem.

"Why not just kill them?" Daryl's gravelly voice challenged Jesus, who launched into an explanation of how poorly equipped they were, people and ammo wise.

Simple solution.

Scary stories never bothered Rick before, and The Saviors didn't seem to be much more than that. Daryl, Abraham and Sasha didn't have a problem laying into Negan's men on the road, and they had been outnumbered then.

Simple problems call for simple solutions.

* * *

Loading crops into the RV, Rick could tell Jesus was biting his tongue.

"What?" he asked flatly, not being one for pleasantries anymore.

"Even Negan didn't get this much up front," Jesus joked as he passed with a basket full of apples.

"That's not it," Rick deflected the jovial jab calmly and waited for Jesus to deposit the basket in the RV.

The shorter man had been on edge since Maggie had returned from meeting with Gregory with positive news of a deal and the conditions. Rick still had questions about how none of the Hilltop residents knew how to fight. Was it a learned helplessness, or did something else happen? And why, when he and his family visited the various farming plots to collect food, were there murmurs of someone named 'Sam'.

Jesus sighed, tugging at the dark beanie on his head. Rick wondered briefly how Jesus got on in the heat wearing a leather duster and more layers than he could guess. He glanced up when Michonne appeared at his side, watching them both with an apprehensive look.

"I said that we ran out of ammo a few months back, but I didn't tell you how," Jesus started, his tone low, as if not to draw attention to their conversation. "There was someone who tried fighting back."

"Sam," Michonne concluded easily. It was an observation, not a question. One easily drawn from the murmurs of the Hilltop people.

Jesus nodded sadly at Michonne, and Rick frowned. Why did he look guilty?

"Stupid bitch is why we're low on man power and why it's getting harder to collect for Negan," another voice contributed, rounding the corner with Daryl and Abraham following. Rick eyed Andy distrustfully. A Hilltop liaison with Negan's group, he didn't doubt that the man was still angry over the confrontation earlier and death of Ethan. Rick decided to play nice, however, considering that Jesus told him that Andy knew details on The Saviors compound.

"One woman went and stormed up shit creek?" Abraham asked, his voice colored impressed.

Andy threw a glare over his shoulder at the bigger man. "No, if she had been alone then it would have ended better. Samantha led almost all our people that were capable of firing guns to their deaths."

"No one else did anything other than kiss The Savior's boots," Jesus snapped, "Sam tried to do what everyone else was too scared to."

"And now look where we are! Kissing the asses of both The Saviors and now whoever these people think they are," Andy snarled back, to which Abraham dropped a heavy hand onto his shoulder to calm the man down.

"Abraham, why don't you help Andy draw out a map of the building," Rick proposed, the request coming out more an order than any refutable suggestion.

Andy let out an angry breath through his nose before the two men retreated towards the house. Rick turned back to Jesus, who was watching Andy with a scowl.

"She was a nurse here," he explained, glancing between Rick, Daryl and Michonne. "A few months ago, Sam organized some of our people to go in with the last of our guns and get rid of The Saviors. We've never seen more than twenty of them here at a time, so she thought if we had the element of surprise, they could win. They –," Jesus's sentence broke off with a dismissive shake of his head, confirming the group's suspicions of how the confrontation ended.

"Ya let a _nurse_ get people that didn't know the hell what they were doin' ta shoot up a compound?" Daryl gruffed, his arms crossed. Rick thought it sounded far-fetched as well.

A smile quirked across Jesus' lips at the question. "Sam is," he paused, teeth flashing as he huffed out a laugh, " _very_ _persuasive_. Good at rallying people together. Didn't take many charged speeches from her to get people excited – get people moving."

"You're talking about her like she's still alive," Michonne commented, watching Jesus carefully with her dark eyes. Rick had noted that as well. The present tense Jesus used stuck out like a thorn and tweaked Rick's interest.

"They still have her, I'm sure of it." Jesus affirmed solidly, "Probably in the compound, locked up somewhere." The man looked between the three of them, a determined look in his eyes. There wasn't a doubt in Jesus' mind that this woman was still alive, Rick acknowledged.

"Why would they keep her alive this long?" Rick challenged, his own thorns threatening to poke holes in Jesus' resolve. One woman, nurse or not, that challenged and murdered at least one of The Saviors was surely extinguished before she had a chance to even catch fire.

Another smile flitted across Jesus' bearded face.

"Like I said, she's persuasive."

* * *

Negan loved the smell of fear.

It was difficult to describe; slightly metallic in nature, he couldn't designate it as anything other than _powerful_. It made him almost vibrate with thrill, with excitement whenever he had a chance to experience it. His dick twitched, already half hard just thinking about it.

And forced to her knees in front of him by a guard on either side grasping her shoulders, the smell of fear was coming off her in waves. It wafted and twisted through the air of the early morning, settling around him.

He didn't say anything for a while, just standing over her, dragging Lucille lightly against the surface of the earth, contemplating how to proceed. Which of the _many_ ways he could reap enjoyment by making this girl piss her pants. That's all she was, after all, a girl. Looking too young to have done what his men had claimed she perpetuated. Orchestrated. Controlled.

Her hands were clenched in front of her, likely due to that being the only comfortable position they could manage while tied up. Negan resisted smiling when he noticed her shaking.

Fuck, he loved fear.

"Get her up."

Negan didn't take his eyes from the girl as the men on either side lifted her roughly to her feet unceremoniously. She was tiny, and even standing, Negan had to tilt his head down to properly look at her. His eyes lazily strolled up and down her figure. Short, young, verging on chubby; if Negan weren't fucking furious, he would have laughed out loud. She was unintimidating, unthreatening, unimpressive, unremarkable and entirely unnoteworthy.

Negan's gaze lifted from her form to her face, and almost took back his miserly list of adjectives for the girl. Meeting his gaze head on, her chin was pointed up as her steely one matched his own. He was forced to recognize that she was trembling from barely concealed anger, not merely fear.

Huh. Well then.

Giant, doe-like hazel eyes contrasted greatly with the malice and spite staring back at him in them. Her eyebrows were expressive, dark and thick, only serving to make her eyes look even bigger. The girl's hair stuck up oddly around her face, matted with dirt and twigs and blood; Negan supposed disinterestedly that she was normally a pale blonde. Her nose and cheekbones were spattered with freckles, and her jaw was set in a way that made her full lips almost curl into a sneer.

If she wore a different expression, or perhaps if she had his dick in her mouth, he may have admitted she were pretty.

Negan scanned her features a few times, acknowledging that she wasn't what he would typically find attractive. She wasn't the sexiest thing he had ever seen, didn't appear to have a good rack, and looked younger than he was usually into. But the tiny thing in front of him was strong, and it took him aback.

She didn't flinch when he let out a short, mocking laugh.

"This has _got_ to be a fuckin' joke," he turned his gaze to looking expectantly between the men on either side of the girl.

When he had been urgently woken up by Simon, announcing that one of the outbuildings had been attacked, Negan had jumped in a truck with his men while Simon briefed him on the situation.

A small group from Hilltop, armed, had barged in in the early hours of the morning, guns blazing and took out around half the men stationed there before The Saviors had regained control. They had captured who a couple of the intruders had pointed out was the leader.

Simon said his name was Sam Novak, and Negan was already imagining all the possible ways that he would humiliate and torture the man before beating his fucking head in with Lucille. He was going to take Sam back to Hilltop, and make Gregory and whoever Sam's wife was watch while Lucille crushed his skull and decorated everyone with the fragments and splatter. Negan mused if he should string the fucker up on the Hilltop wall with his intestines. Chop his cock off and fuck his own useless skull with the shrimpy dink.

So, imagine his surprise when it turned out Sam had a pussy and a pair of tits – unimpressive as they may be – and was actually named Samantha.

"She killed at least eight of us on her own," the Savior over Sam's left shoulder growled, knocking his shoulder into her smaller one roughly. Sam didn't stumble, just absorbed the blow with grace, not taking her eyes away from Negan.

She didn't acknowledge the men around her, just kept her eyes calmly on Negan as she replied to the Savior.

"It would've been more if your fat fuckin' ass hadn't tripped and crushed me."

Her voice was raspy and on a lower register than Negan was used to on women, though it still carried a feminine note. It didn't match the young, soft features of her face or her small stature. High pitched voices irritated Negan, and he had to admit that hearing the tiny woman curse sent the blood pumping to his dick.

The Savior in question immediately started snapping something rude at Sam, possibly threats, but she remained disinterested in the man, watching Negan evenly instead. Negan stared back at her, contemplating what he should do with the newfound discovery of who Sam was. Would it be as fun, as satisfying to simply beat her head in with Lucille and then go about his merry fucking day?

"Shut the fucking fuck up," he ground out at one of the incompetent sacks of shit that was blithering on angrily at the smaller woman. The Savior jumped slightly at being addressed before he seemed to visibly shrink under the angry glare of Negan.

"You mean to fuckin' tell me," Negan sneered, advancing on the now hesitant and shrinking man. "That this fuckin' midget girl comes in with a couple untrained fucking idiots, and shoots the fuck out of half my goddamned fucking men?" He swung the bat around to gesture to the bodies lying around them.

Negan was itching to beat something. Lucille was thirsty.

The Savior he directed his rhetorical question at opened and closed his mouth stupidly a few times, before he rubbed a few brain cells together and found the common sense to shut the fuck up.

Negan turned his sights back to Samantha, looking her up and down once before pacing away a few steps. Like lightning, Negan whipped back around and swung Lucille, stopping centimeters short from connecting with the side of her face. The whoosh she made through the air was satisfying, though not as much as if the barbed bat had connected.

Samantha Novak still did not move. He may have seen her jaw twitch minutely and her face incline away the smallest fraction of an inch, but it was not _nearly_ the reaction that he wanted from her. Her large eyes remained on his, and Negan wondered if she was watching him with tunnel vision; if she even noticed Lucille, barrelling towards her head.

Her eyes were more impressive than her stature.

He briefly considered saying fuck it and just killing her, even if just to relieve some of the tension that now littered his muscles, but Negan had some restraint.

He swung Lucille down in front of him and shifted so that he leaned partially on her, invading the solitary girl's personal space.

"Tell me something, _Samantha_ ," he breathed, his voice low and dangerous and he didn't miss the goosebumps that appeared on her forearms in response to him speaking her name. His lips curled at the reaction, even if it had been small. "What the fuck did you think you would get out of killing my men?"

Samantha didn't respond right away, so Negan continued, louder, "Because you _sure_ as fuckity fuck weren't stupid enough to think you had as much as a hair on a nutsack's chance in hell of walking away alive?"

"I wanted to send a message."

Her tone was sharp, and even though it was quiet, Negan would admit he knew every pair of eyes of his men were on her. Samantha Novak held a commanding presence.

Negan bit the inside of his cheeks as he tried, and failed to resist grinning. A mocking smile gracing his features, he leaned back and laughed.

"And what a great fucking message it was! Fuck with us," Negan gestured around to his men, both the ones that arrived with him and the ones left after the fight. "Fuck with The Saviors," he paused to chuckle darkly and then purposely leaned into Sam's personal space once more. "Fuck with _me_ ," his breath trailed across her face as he growled. "And you end up a shit-stain on the bottom of our motherfuckin' boots."

Negan stopped his tirade to look down, seeing the dead face of a man that he didn't recognize off to his right a few paces. He wasn't dressed as any of his Saviors would be, so he assumed it was one of the men from Hilltop that _she_ showed up with. He walked a few paces, kicking the dead man's arm out of his way. Samantha's gaze, whereas before held forced austerity, grew heated and angry.

Ah. There was the proverbial fuckin' button.

Negan made a show of wiping one of his boots on the sleeve of the supine man. "Just a fuckin' shit-stain," he muttered, flicking his eyes back over to the shorter female.

"The message," she ground out, "Is that you aren't untouchable, _Negan_." Her nostrils flared and she took in a deep breath before continuing.

"This is the beginning. Just remember, Negan. Fragments are often more dangerous than the actual bullet."

Negan fancied himself proficient at reading people. At really _seeing_ people. Looking at someone and knowing, at a fucking glance, what was going to break them; what was going to allow him to mold them into whatever he wanted. Looking at Samantha Novak, Negan pondered what exactly it would take to figure her out, to break and mold her.

Would that be more fun than just bashing her fucking brains in?

He knew the answer before he even asked himself the question.

"Well, Sam," he drawled the nickname out at her, "I would fucking _love_ to have the chance to help you deliver that message."

Negan signaled over her shoulder at one of the men in the background, and then returned his attention back to her with a grin as the Savior approached with a burlap sack. He leant in right before the man encased her head with the sack, effectively freeing him from that angry gaze.

"See you at home, doll."

* * *

 **A/N: Don't worry! I definitely did not abandon my other story, HI. I just was in a writing rut and wanted to try something new, but I will most likely be updating my other story before I add another chapter to this one. This one isn't entirely 100% mapped out, unlike HI, but it's a fun change.**

 **And I don't plan on bouncing between Rick's group and The Sanctuary, either. That was just for introduction purposes.**

 **Lemme know if you're interested or want me to continue this one, or it might go on the back burner for a while.**

 **Thanks for reading, lovely!**

 **-Submechanophobia**


	2. Ice

Storm Warning

 **Hi, I know it's been a while. I won't give excuses, I just suck aahaha SORRY.**

 **There were a couple questions that I got in reviews and messages, but it's a bit long, so I'm going to put them in the author's note at the end of the chapter. I'm so glad people seemed interested and had nice things to say about the first chapter, thank you everyone!**

 **Thank you to** **laura** **,** **Deedee** **,** **Cappiesgirl23** **,** **Bactrian Camel** **,** **FriendsWithTheMonster** **,** **Guest** **,** **Jasamfromthestart** **,** **twxnkle** **,** **GawkyTC** **,** **JenTen** **,** **Shingle** **,** **Jean** **,** **Charlene Clark** **, and** **Rachael557s** **for reviewing. Thanks to everyone that favourited and followed this story so far.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters associated with the franchise.**

* * *

Chapter 2: Ice

Bound, blind and bouncing around in the container of a box truck, Sam waited as fear slithered up her like the tide rising, icy and sharp. Tears pricked behind her eyes as the gravity of Sam's situation weighed in. Her teeth chattered.

She was worse than dead at this point.

She wished he had just killed her. It was sick and it was selfish, but Sam felt her impact would have been far greater if she had gone out that way. She could have died a martyr, been a source for more ignition and fire. Caused more people to rise up against the Saviors.

Instead, Negan had promised her that he would 'help her deliver her message'. The wolfish, unfitting grin that accompanied his words were enough to force Sam to acknowledge how well and truly _fucked_ she was.

Sam had kept up the brave face until the burlap sack was thrown over her head, and then the fearless farce that was fueled by adrenaline and anger and had inevitably withered away. She had accepted her fate; Sam was going to die for her cause. Not in the way that she had hoped, quick and in a blaze of glory, but it could still mean something.

She hadn't been entirely unscathed. They had beaten her, the sharp pain when she inhaled reminded her of that fact. Sam took a tally of her body as she tried to settle her increasingly panicked breathing.

Her face throbbed. Sam's bottom lip was split on the inside from hitting her teeth and the metallic taste was making her feel nauseous. Her jaw ached, but Sam couldn't complain. At least it didn't feel broken. The same could not be said about her rib or her right wrist, the latter of which was painfully clamped behind her back. She tried not to move around in the vehicle, the searing pain from doing so making her hiss.

She had fallen and bent her wrist awkwardly when the shitbag had tripped into her and stopped her from putting a bullet into his friend. She had screamed at them, demanded to see Negan, the only name she knew from the previous visits from the Saviors.

 _You all work for Negan now._

They had laughed in her face and Sam had grit her teeth and sneered when the fat Savior put his gun to her head with a chuckle.

"We're all Negan, baby," stale breath hissed lowly into her face, and Sam felt her lip curl angrily at the patronizing response.

"Hold up," a rough voice stalled the inevitable splatter of her grey matter against the wall. "What's your name?"

Her eyes flicked towards the other man and back to the gun at her temple. "The fuck's it matter what my name is?" she snapped at him.

The gun clashed into the side of Sam's head roughly before the first Savior grabbed her chin and spat into her face, "He asked you a question."

"Sam," she roughly bit out, blood pumping loudly in her ears now.

Anger flashed in his eyes. "Bullshit." Fatty looked over to the side where the other Savior was standing, looking at her contemplatively. "She's a fuckin' liar, George."

George's tongue ran along his bottom lip as he stared hard at Sam. His lips twitched amusedly briefly before he regarded the other man once more. "We're lookin' for a Sam, she says she's it. She stays alive 'til Negan gets here."

Sam jumped and tried to twist her head towards the Savior at the mention of Negan's name. "Take me to see him," she demanded loudly once more. She could still do it, still at least attempt to end this.

End Negan.

"Shut up," he snapped at Sam, jerking her head away from the other guy. The two men argued for a while longer about who she was before fatty conceded to not putting a bullet in her brain. They had evidently gotten her name from a Hilltop civilian, likely as the cause and organizer of the attack. It made sense that they would want her alive to parade around for Negan.

Sam had gotten her wish. She had been face to face with the sociopath himself, felt his breath ghost across her face and the rush of air as he feigned bashing her head in with a baseball bat decorated in barbed wire. Her eyes couldn't unstick themselves from his face, she had zoned in on him like he was her prey.

But now, with her mind no longer clouded by epinephrine, Sam realized that he had been stalking and she had been the prey.

And so, she had been caught. She had severely underestimated the amount of men he had control of. Not thought of the fact that the building that Hilltop knew of wasn't their main base of operations. Crucial mistakes, all facilitated by hate and anger. And for that, Negan would make an example out of her. Her mind bounced around the seemingly limitless and awful possibilities of what awaited her at the other end of the road. Torture, rape, dismemberment. Torn apart by humans or the dead.

Sam's mind wasn't a safe place to be.

At first, she had tried to follow the truck's movements. Tried to make sense of the turns, the bends in the road, track which direction they were headed and how fast they were moving. Not surprisingly, Sam couldn't focus and soon gave up. She heard distant murmurs in the front of the truck of Saviors communicating on Walkie Talkies, but couldn't strain her ears enough to decipher any of it.

Hilltop wouldn't know that they had taken her.

Both too quickly and painstakingly slow, the truck ride ended. As the truck stopped, Sam was sure that her heart had as well.

She ground her teeth together and squeezed her eyes shut tightly, forcing herself to forget her fear and tears and the faces of her dead friends. She didn't have time for that right now. This was her fate, and she had to face it.

The door of the truck clattered loudly to her right as someone shoved it upwards. The inside of the bag lightened from the invasion of the morning sun, and Sam didn't have long to adjust before the burlap sack was pulled off her head.

Fate presented itself as the looming, intimidatingly tall form of Negan. Even standing on the ground whilst Sam was still on her knees in the truck, he seemed to loom over her. Wolfish grin and all, Negan leaned back on one foot and threw his arms out to each side, the bat following the motion.

"Welcome to the Sanctuary, kid," she resisted jumping at his booming, almost theatrically exaggerated voice. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest, and Sam narrowed her eyes at Negan.

He chuckled, and Sam knew that Negan was mocking her. His hands found his hips. "That's a scary look. Lighten up! Don't want you scarin' the shit out of all my people, do we? What kind of impression will that be?" He waited a moment, watching her with that same wide grin. "Neil, why don't you help our _lovely_ guest out of the truck."

It wasn't a question, and Sam felt the truck rock as the larger Savior jumped in the back, sneering at her before hoisting her up roughly by her arms. He bumped her wrist carelessly, and Sam let out a yelp of pain as she stumbled to her feet.

Negan ignored Sam's discomfort, instead just walked ahead of her after Neil shoved her in front of himself. Sam's gaze stuck to the ground as her legs tried to coordinate themselves, numb from her immobile position in the back of the truck.

"Not the barns you're used to staying in, but you'll get used to it," Negan called over his shoulder as he walked, unconcerned.

She considered snarking back that they were _trailers_ and not barns, but decided to stay silent. Sam finally tore her gaze away from the ground and was momentarily stunned by the monstrosity of a building in front of her. Muted and industrial and cold looking, the Sanctuary was situated in an old factory. Stairs zigzagging up the front of the building on one side, connecting various levels, while the rest of the anterior side was littered with wide, dark windows.

She whipped her head around at the familiar, snarling sound of the dead. Sam's heart dropped at the sight that greeted her. Set of chain link, with a wall of geeks in various states and positions, acting as a defensive perimeter around the building. Sam's feet stalled as she watched a person dart around the dead, leading another before shoving the same dead figure into a set of spikes to anchor it in place. There were so many of them.

Who the fuck were these people?

"What a beautiful fuckin' sight to come back to," Sam hadn't realized that Negan had stopped as well, and her breath hitched as his voice sounded behind her. Sam clenched her jaw as she took a step away and turned so that Negan was in her line of sight. She didn't like him standing behind her. The man looked over the wall of the undead proudly, hand resting on one hip while he balanced the armored bat in the other. It was like he was looking at a sunset or a nice car, not a wall of the undead.

Sam didn't respond, just turned her sights back to the man who was making his way back to the gate in the chain link, another similarly dressed man slamming it shut behind him. They looked like prisoners, Sam realized. Would she be sentenced to that as well?

"Move those midget legs, Sammy, we've got a lotta shit to do. Chop chop," Sam narrowed her steely gaze on Negan's retreating figure, hating the condescending nickname. Neil shoved her forward with the palm of his hand on her shoulder, and Sam was spurred forward.

The inside was just as muted and dull as the outside, and they weaved through hallways and turned corners, all which looked the same to her. They didn't pass by many people, but Sam had seen enough to be able to question why the few they did see immediately kneeled in Negan's presence. Anger prickled her nerve endings as her stomach twisted. He didn't acknowledge them, just sauntered past like Negan hadn't even seen them.

Sam hated Negan.

Her brow furrowed when a woman appeared in front of them. Sam was confused due to a variety of reasons. The young woman didn't kneel, for one. She greeted Negan with what she observed was a forced, polite smile and didn't meet his eyes. Her long, blonde hair helped her hide, pulled forward on either side of her face. The short and revealing black dress and high heels stuck out to Sam like a sore thumb. Clothing like that had no place in the apocalypse, and her eyebrows raised higher when she realized the woman's legs were shaved and she wore makeup.

Who were these people?

"Amber," Negan greeted, and Sam tried to find any trace of warmth or love in his voice. She found none. Was this his girlfriend? Wife?

"Will you be joining us today?" the girl's voice was soft and timid with practiced compliance, and her eyes flickered up to his face briefly before trailing back down. She didn't look at Sam or either of the Saviors that followed behind Negan.

Negan scratched his beard thoughtfully before running a hand over his face. "Busy. Tell the girls maybe later." Sam frowned as she tried to decipher his words.

Negan seemed to feel her gaze on his face and looked over his shoulder at Sam. Dramatically, he let out a large sigh and slapped a hand to his forehead. "What a shitty fuckin' host I am," he exclaimed, and Sam frowned. Was he for real? Her situation seemed like a joke to Negan, and Sam wasn't sure if the man's jovial nature frightened her or pissed her off. "Amber, this is Samantha. Samantha, Amber." He bounced the bat in the air between them carelessly and Sam resisted jumping away. "Amber is one of my wives."

 _Wives_?

Her surprise showed, and she blinked, quickly looking from Amber to Negan, and then back to Amber. Amber watched her in return levelly, with a curious glint, but said nothing. Her eyes roamed around Sam's face, probably looking over the dried blood and bruises on her, and her lips thinned. Instead of a greeting, Amber merely nodded stiffly at her and returned her gaze to anywhere but them.

Negan's eyes roamed over Amber's figure and legs lustrously, before he continued walking down the hall without any parting words for his 'wife'.

She really hated Negan.

Sam didn't ask where they were going. She wasn't sure she wanted to find the answer. The Saviors behind them walked closely, with Neil's hand never hesitating to shove her forward if Sam started to slow. Halfway down the final hallway, Negan stopped and rapped his knuckles against the frame of an open door.

"Dr. Carson," Sam's breath hitched in her throat as Negan named the man in the room, facing away from them. "Have someone I want you to take a look at."

It couldn't be.

Emmett Carson turned around; lined face, greying hair, polo shirt and all. He didn't recognize Sam right away, but she saw the drastic change in his expression when Emmett finally did place where he had seen her face previously.

" _Half of everything includes doctors," the Savior spoke down the Gregory, as if he were explaining a simple concept to a child. "You wouldn't be selfish enough not to want our people medically cared for, would you, Gregory?"_

 _Gregory's discomfort with the Saviors demands was severely outweighed by his spineless nature and his desire to survive and please the other group. "No, of course not," he agreed after a moments hesitation._

 _It made Sam's blood boil._

" _You're a human being with a life, not an object to be traded," Sam reminded Emmett Carson angrily as he packed his few clothes into a bag. They were out of ear shot from Gregory and the Saviors, in the trailer that the two doctors shared. "They can't just –"_

" _Sam," Emmett cut her off, his patience with her wearing thin. "If I had a choice, I'd make it." He looked around the room once more, grabbing a stethoscope off the small table in the centre of the trailer._

" _There's always a choice, Emmett," her voice came out as quiet and scared and Sam hated it._

 _Facing away from her, Sam watched as the older man's shoulders rose and sunk with the deep breath that he took. He turned around, his sad eyes giving Sam her final answer. "Help Harlan in any way you can, Sam. Hilltop needs you." Emmett Carson left the trailer door open as he left, and Sam stared at the spot he once stood._

 _Her hands clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms._

 _There was always a choice._

Sam's throat felt dry as she looked at the man that she used to work beside and see every day. They had probably been staring at each other for far too long, because Negan let out a fake, embarrassed laugh.

"Fuck! I forgot that you both were from Hilltop. This is awkward as shit, huh Doc?" Negan leaned to the side and towards Emmett, his hand cupping around his mouth as if he were telling a secret that he didn't want Sam to hear. The laughter dancing in his eyes told Sam that he hadn't forgotten that fact at all.

Sam wasn't sure what to say to him. What could she say, when she was sure she would be dead in a few hours. Negan was probably just parading her through to make sure everyone knew they had lost.

"I wasn't aware that you felt we needed a nurse," Emmett's tone drifted between polite and clipped as he questioned Negan. "I've been managing fine alone." Sam's heart clenched for the older man. He obviously thought that Negan had taken another one of Hilltop's people for their own personal gain, and was trying to say that her presence wasn't necessary.

Sam watched as Negan's eyebrows rose and his tongue wet his bottom lip. "A nurse, hey?" he asked interestedly. She didn't like the sinking feeling that appeared in her stomach at the question.

"And what did your men do to her?" Emmett continued, anger rising in his voice as his eyes raked over the blood caked in her hair and Sam's wrists still bound behind her back.

Negan let out a loud bark of laughter. " _My_ men defended themselves against a fucking ambush," Sam hated how amused he sounded. She preferred anger.

Emmett Caron's expression changed quickly from anger to confusion, before he turned his gaze to Sam and it morphed into disappointed. Sam couldn't look at him, the guilt preventing her from doing so. He knew she was responsible for death, Sam was just grateful that he didn't know the extent of which.

"What're your injuries?" Sam wanted to cry at the coldness, the disappointment in his voice. "Any head trauma? It's a lot of blood." She could feel him looking over her face and hair once again.

"It's not mine," Sam mumbled, her eyes glued to the wall.

"Fuck," Negan all but shouted. "Been so fuckin' silent this whole time, forgot you knew how to speak." She heard him chuckling to himself under his breath.

Sam really _really_ hated Negan.

"I'll wait outside. Leave the door open," Negan ordered, and Sam could tell there was an underlying threat. It was jarring, how fast the man could change from laughing to serious. Negan whistled as he sauntered out, and Sam hoped that he would trip and fall on the stupid bat he carried around.

"What do I need to look at?" Emmett asked curtly.

Sam wanted to say nothing. He obviously didn't want to see her right now, rightfully angry that she had led some of their people to their deaths. Sam didn't like silence however, and wanted to get this exchange over with as soon as possible.

"My wrist and one of my ribs might be broken," Sam replied dully and resisted tugging at her bound wrists behind her back.

Emmett sighed, and grabbed a knife off the table beside him. "Turn around," he ordered, quickly reaching over and slicing the cable tie binding her wrists when she complied. Sam rolled her wrists around to get the feeling back in them, wincing as she rotated the right one.

Emmett grabbed her wrist carefully, experimentally applying pressure to different points and asking where it hurt. Sam yelped when he pressed down on a spot under her thumb.

Sam was sure than her guilt was increasing with Emmett's every sigh. "It's hard to tell, nothing seems severely damaged. The scaphoid bone is pretty small, so I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of fracture. There isn't much we can do, just try to be mindful of it."

He looked over the area of Sam's ribs that she guessed was bruised or broken. It still hurt a lot to inhale, and Emmett informed her that a large bruise was forming. Sam knew it didn't matter either way, she would have to heal her ribs on her own.

If she lived long enough to heal them, that is.

Emmett turned without a word, rifling through a few drawers on his desk before returning with a small white bottle. Pain killers. Sam didn't bother to ask or try to read what the label said. She was familiar with most of the common opioids.

"I trust you know how many and how often to take them," he said with an arch of his brow. Sam nodded quickly and reached for the bottle. Before she could grab it, Emmett held it just out of her reach.

His eyes were on the ground, his brows furrowed. "Is Harlan alive?" he asked quietly. Sam figured that he didn't want to look at her in case her answer was no.

"Yes," she said shortly and quietly. Sam wouldn't have let Harlan come with her, even if he had offered. She knew what he meant for the people at Hilltop.

Emmett nodded once in reply, and then promptly turned away from Sam once he handed the pill bottle to her. She took this as her dismissal, but hesitated. Should she say goodbye? This would surely be the last time she would see the doctor.

Sam's pride didn't let her, however, so she just took a clumsy step back before turning and walking out of the doctor's office. She slid the bottle into her back pocket before any of the Saviors saw that she had it, assuming that they would just take it away from her.

No use giving supplies to a dead girl.

Negan let out a low whistle from his position leant against the hallway wall. "You could cut that tension with a fuckin' knife," he commented conversationally.

She inwardly cringed. He was so deliberately obnoxious and it didn't make sense to her. It was unsettling, having someone beside her that was so ruthless and powerful and also such a juxtaposition. Something in Sam shifted in that moment, and she made a choice. She was going to die anyways, so why should she spend it silent and timid and compliant.

The volume of her voice startled even herself. "Nice place you got here," she commented loudly as she increased her pace to almost walk in stride with Negan as they continued down the halls. "Not typically one to enjoy the smell of old pollution and assembly line production, but it has a certain charm." Her voice shook slightly as she kept up the obnoxiously loud volume.

Negan kept walking, but inclined his head slightly towards her, an amused glint in his eye. He seemed to be forming a response, but Sam cut him off.

"You can almost _feel_ the child labour and slavery that was here, huh?" she prodded.

Negan let out a short, amused laugh. "Cut the shit, I can tell you're doing everything you can not to piss your damn pants."

"Seems like you know a lot about overcompensating," she quipped back even louder, trying to mask the shake in her voice. She stuck out her pinky to the man to add emphasis to what she meant.

"Already thinking about the size of my cock? Aren't you fuckin' eager," Negan commented crudely while he walked, and Sam turned to sneer at him in response.

"Shut the fuck up, we're here," he interrupted what would have likely been a rude response filled with expletives from Sam. "Wait for me out here," he ordered the other men.

It was a plain door, not unlike any of the other ones that they had passed previously. Sam's stomach churned as she concluded that whatever awaited her on the other side would either be some form of torture room or where they slaughtered captives.

Negan leaned in front of her and swung the door open before Sam's panic could set in. Her breath caught in her throat, and she just about choked when she realized it was just a room.

Large and mostly barren, there was an old steel bedframe with a mattress and discolored sheets in a corner. A window on the far wall with a cheap wooden desk and chair set, there wasn't much else in the room. Negan strode past her and into the room, and Sam followed, trying to shake the feeling of shock from her body.

How _anticlimactic_ to die in such a room, plain and dull as it were.

"My men are going to be in the halls, don't be stupid."

"What, no roommate?" she asked him dully as he turned to face her. She wasn't entirely sure what game he was playing, and tried to mask her discomfort with sarcasm. His proximity and the fact they were alone in the room, even with the door open, was disconcerting.

"You're getting more than any other fucking prisoner. Show some goddamn gratitude," his form was intimidating, and Sam recognized the order in his voice.

He waited patiently, and when she didn't respond he took a step forward and into her personal space. Sam refused to back away and hardened her gaze on to Negan's.

"I said," he growled into her face, and Sam could hear the sound of his leather gloves tightening their grip on the bat. "Show some _motherfuckin'_ gratitude."

"Thank you," Sam's voice was calm and stern as she glared up into his face, craning her neck back to be able to look at him properly. He was a tall fucker, that was for sure.

Negan didn't move away, just stared back at her, and Sam could tell he was thinking, contemplating what to do next. How to intimidate her further. Ice filled her veins once more as she took in just how close he was, how she could feel the heat radiating off him, see his chest rise and fall, she could almost count his eyelashes. Too close.

"Are you going to rape me?" Her voice came out as loud, detached and disinterested. As if she weren't talking about herself. She wanted to take his power away from him in any way she could, and if acting aloof and like the assault wouldn't affect her, would do that, then Sam would try. Try not to think about how anything that happened in this room would likely destroy her.

Negan didn't take a step away from her, but he leaned back some so that he wasn't looming over Sam. His face changed and became more severe than it had been when he first appeared in front of her this morning.

"The Saviors aren't rapists – _I'm_ not a goddamned mother fucking rapist," he enunciated harshly into her face. Something in Sam believed him, believed the severity in his face. She didn't think that Negan was an honest, morally sound man, but Sam didn't think he was a rapist. At least not in the traditional sense.

Negan's face changed, and a smirk slid onto his mouth once again. It was interesting, watching the man change emotions. "I have three wives, I get all the pussy I want," he continued, and Sam didn't have time be disgusted before he took a quick step back and out of her personal space.

"My men are going to be in the halls, don't be fuckin' stupid," Negan echoed himself as he retreated out of the room.

"You said that already," Sam grumbled under her breath, and jumped slightly when the door slammed behind him. She listened for a moment, and heard the bolt slide and lock the door from the outside.

The silence that followed ran her through like an icy draft, and Sam found herself, once again, cold.

She hated Negan.

* * *

 **A/N: I bet you can guess the timeline since Negan only has three wives, not four. I know on the wiki it lists two other 'unnamed wives', but I probably won't include them.**

 **So, there's been a few questions both in reviews and privately messaged to me about this story. First one was if this was a slow burn or not. I'm not sure how to answer that, because it depends what you mean by that in terms of the end goal. This isn't a Negan redemption story, he's a prick and I'm not about to spend 100,000 words making him super likeable and lovely. It's complicated and frustrating, but I guess I can say that it wont be 'as slow' paced as Heterochromia Iridum.**

 **Another question was if I'd add teasers at the end of chapters like I do in HI. I don't plan to right now, just because I don't really have this one entirely mapped out and I keep moving chapters around. Maybe in the future though!**

 **Last one messaged to me was if HI and this story would sync up, and if Katty would make an appearance. Good idea and I will keep it as a possibility but I have no plans to do that unless I finish HI first. It'd be hard to avoid spoilers for either story if I have Sam or Katty appear in the other, since they start at different times.**

 **The questions and interest are lovely, thank you all!**

 **-Submechanophobia**


	3. Bliss

Storm Warning

 **No excuses, I know it's been a while. Here's the next chapter guys :)**

 **Thank you to everyone that reviewed, followed, and favourited the story. It means a lot.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead or any of the characters associated with the franchise.**

* * *

Chapter 3: Bliss

She wasn't sure how long she stared out the window, conceding to sit on the bed when her legs went numb from standing with her knees locked. Sam had watched the sun drift across the sky as the hours passed, aching to be outside and away from The Sanctuary. Even if it meant she couldn't go back to Hilltop and would have to scavenge on her own. It was better to be outside fighting for life than inside, waiting to die. The clear, beautiful weather mocked her; the only other thing that would have made it worse was if a bird had flitted across her view. It didn't, and Sam wasn't sure if she was grateful that a juxtaposition to her captivity was missing or not.

This was now day two, but it felt like a month had passed.

She had cried for a while, but had forced herself to stop before anyone would have been able to tell. The idea of the Saviors laughing at her for tear stains and puffy eyes and a running nose didn't appeal to her.

Her mind wandered away from her tears and back to thinking and planning and staring out that damn window. She was sure that if she looked away, the bright rectangle shape of the outside would be burnt into her retinas.

Sam had already been through every inch of the room, looking for clues or information or a loose floorboard or pipe or anything sharp. Anything. And she had come up with nothing.

The orange pill bottle rolled between her hands, the noise almost soothing to her while her brain worked in overdrive, contemplating what to do next. Finally, Sam tore her eyes away from the window and to the bottle in her hands.

Hydromorphone.

She had given the medication countless times before in hospital, but had never taken it herself. Stronger than morphine, codeine, oxycodone, Sam briefly considered biting the white pill in half. It was only a moment of deliberation before she thought – fuck it – and dry swallowed one.

She never took pain killers before this. A couple T3's when she got her wisdom teeth removed at sixteen but other than that, Sam avoided pharmaceuticals. She had seen a teenage girl brought in to her workplace once after she had overdosed on Tylenol. Even an over the counter medication that many people took regularly, everything had side effects.

Everything had consequences.

She tried to forget the consequences of her own actions and roughed the heel of her hand into her eye, wiping away any last traces of guilt, worry, sadness.

It had happened fast – too fast. The stale, still heat of the night had snapped in an instant when she had shot the men standing guard in front of the compound and started it all. It had barely registered in her brain when the people that she had come with – some of them, her friends – had started dropping like flies when the Saviors had roused and returned fire. The smell of gunfire and death overwhelmed Sam's olfactory system, even now.

She started recounting details; what they could have done differently, what _she_ could have done differently. What if they hadn't gone in guns blazing? What if she had taken a smaller group? Would the outcome had been different, even slightly? It was still a blur, the adrenaline at the time clouding her senses and her memory as her brain tried desperately to fill in the gaps.

 _They're all dead._

Her molars caught the inside of her cheek as Sam chewed roughly, trying to stop the fresh tears from threatening her now dry face.

She wasn't sure how long she sat like that, frozen from trying not to recount the faces she'd never see again, but soon her mind dulled, and the ever-present throb of pain all over her body mimicked that.

It was almost warm and tingly, and Sam's brow relaxed as her eyes slid shut, relishing in the comfort of Dilaudid. It was like being inside a cabin in the middle of a blizzard, curled up in front of a crackling, musical fire. It was like sex and it was like cuddling with puppies and it was like hot coffee that someone else made for you in your favourite mug.

Bliss.

"Uh – Samantha?" Meek and unsure, her foggy mind cleared as Sam tried to pinpoint who the fragile, feminine voice belonged to.

She felt slightly dizzy as she swivelled around to stare at the blonde, pretty face of Amber.

Maybe the silence had been too long for Amber or maybe her face didn't show any recognition because Amber cleared her throat.

"Amber – we met, uh, this morning?"

"Sam," she corrected without thinking. She didn't like when people called her Samantha. It took to long to say and Sam fit her better. Come to think of it, she didn't know anyone named Samantha that actually went by Samantha. "Call me Sam, I mean," she clarified when Amber just stared at her.

Her voice sounded dull to her own ears, it lacked any of the bite that she had saved up for Negan. Sam sounded tired. She _was_ tired.

"Okay," Amber agreed, and Sam watched as the girl, surely younger than herself, looked her over quickly. The curious glint from earlier remained, and Sam recognized that the forced placidity that Amber mustered in front of Negan wasn't present on her face.

"Negan wanted me to bring you some stuff," the girl offered, tipping the basket in her arms forward slightly so Sam could see better into it. "It's just shampoo and conditioner and shower stuff, really," Amber explained quickly, shifting the weight in her arms.

Sam thought it looked stupid.

It looked like it was decorated like an Easter basket, complete with bright spring-coloured tissue paper.

"No thanks," she said quickly after she remembered that it was from Negan. Fuck anything that came from him.

Amber's expression quirked, and she shifted the basket so that it was resting on her hip.

"You stink – no offense. And the blood and bits of tree in your hair has gotta be itchy by now," the blonde countered, raising her eyebrows at her.

Sam opened her mouth to tell Amber where she could shove the shampoo, and paused. There was a package of new razors in the basket.

"I'll take it," Sam snapped at her, standing up quickly with the intent of grabbing the basket from her and telling her to leave. Spots appeared in her vision when she got up, and Sam was suddenly light headed. She staggered a bit as she tried to stop herself from falling.

Amber took a quick step forward and used her free hand to steady Sam. "You alright? When's the last time you ate?" She asked, concerned, obviously guessing that Sam's dizziness was from hunger or dehydration.

"Fuckin' opioids," Sam cursed to herself, ignoring the question. She hadn't cared in the moment about any adverse effects from the Hydromorphone, and hoped that the dizziness would pass.

She glanced up at Amber to see that the girl's gaze was now focussed on the small, orange bottle on top of her bed. Amber was probably not much taller than herself, but with the stupid high heels that the blonde wore, she towered over Sam.

"Why do you wear that shit?" she asked bluntly, eyes trailing down to glance over her short, black dress and back up to her face.

Amber almost looked ashamed for a moment, and Sam furrowed her brow at the expression. Amber wet her lips quickly before replying.

"I'll show you where the shower rooms are," she said, not meeting her eyes as she stepped away and towards the doorway.

Sam blanched at the thought of leaving the room. It was small and dull and the air was stale, but it provided some sort of barrier between herself and Negan, no matter how small.

"No, it's – "

"You stink, remember?" Amber prompted, a small, teasing smile appearing on her face. Her hand was still on Sam's upper arm and she tugged her slightly towards the door. She paused for a moment before looking back at Sam hesitantly.

"His men won't bother us, but if anything happens, they'll find you," she said quietly and seriously, and Sam scanned her face, trying to decipher if the girl was scared of her and what she knew.

"Alright," Sam replied after a moment of thought. She could be compliant while she thought of what she would do. With Amber, his _wife_ , by her side, Sam could walk through the Sanctuary, possibly look for an exit, a way out, or a weapon.

As she followed Amber out the door, she briefly considered the outcome if she tried to take Amber hostage in return for her freedom.

But that wasn't her.

At least, Sam _hoped_ that it wasn't her and that it wouldn't come to that.

"So, you're his wife?" Sam asked as she followed Amber, unable to stop the judgemental tone from filling her voice.

"Yes," Amber replied shortly, and it was a cocktail of emotions in that one word that Sam had trouble pinpointing.

On any other day, Sam would have backed off. The girl had been nothing but nice to her so far, and Sam had the suspicion from the earlier encounter that Amber didn't truly love Negan. But Sam was angry and sad and her mind was foggy.

"Is that why you wear that shit?"

Amber shot her a frown, before looking forward once more as they walked through the hall. "Negan likes it," she answered blankly. "He provides a lot for us; I get anything I want. I don't know what I'd be doing without him."

Sam thought the answer sounded rehearsed. "Why do you stay if you aren't happy?" she asked bluntly.

Amber's head snapped to look at Sam once again, her eyes narrowed. "I never said that."

Sam scanned Amber's features; she looked like a cautious cat that was starting to raise it's hackles.

"You didn't have to," she replied, forcing her voice to soften as she watched the woman walking beside her. It wasn't difficult to read. Sam herself had been in unhappy relationship before she had met –

"This is the female shower," Amber interrupted her train of thought, gesturing to a metal door with a crude picture of a woman in a bathtub drawn on it. Sam chose not to comment on the badly drawn boobs and followed Amber in once she pulled the door open.

It was a locker room, with the typical tiled floor and torn open metal lockers decorating the walls. One section had a dirty mirror with a counter in front of it, and a few bathroom stalls. Sam thought it was odd for a factory to have that, but supposed that she hadn't been in many factories in her life to make that decision.

"Through there are the showers," Amber gestured to Sam's right, past the majority of the lockers. Sam nodded and grabbed the basket from Amber's arms. She raised her eyebrows at the girl when she didn't make any motion to leave.

"Stayin' for the show?" she asked to mask her discomfort. Sam had never gotten used to being naked casually after the end of the world. Hilltop had a similar system, with a communal shower MacGyver'd out of buckets and tubes and God knows what else. A few years into the apocalypse, many people had stopped caring who saw who naked. Sam was not one of those people.

"I'll wait here," Amber declared, parking herself on one of the built-in benches in the midst of the room. Sam eyed her warily, and Amber rolled her eyes. "I won't perv on you. Don't want you passing out and drowning," she joked. "Or getting _lost_." It was seemingly added as an afterthought, but Sam heard the stress on the last word.

Amber didn't want her running away.

Sam stiffly nodded before turning and retreating towards the showers without a word.

It wasn't fancy, but it was a hell of a lot more than what they had at the Hilltop. Setting the basket down, Sam twisted the metal knob to where she guessed was a temperature that wouldn't scald her, and quickly removed her clothes.

She almost groaned out loud when the spray hit her, her muscles instantly starting to relax. Reaching down and grabbing the blue coloured bottle of shampoo, Sam didn't bother to read the label and started to scrub at her hair.

In total, Sam had to lather, rinse and repeat at least three times before her hair actually felt clean. She still felt a bit dizzy, and sufficed to sit down on the tiled floor after she was finished with the body wash and turned to the pink razer, still in the packaging.

It was difficult to open and Sam wanted to blame the water and the hard plastic and not her shaking, clumsy hands.

She snapped the two pieces together and just stared at the offensively pink razer. Sitting on the cold, wet floor, her mind was still fuzzy and calm and as she looked at the razer, Sam only felt -

Bliss.

It was mere seconds, but it was long enough to scare her. A few seconds was long enough to consider slashing her wrists and Sam rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, trying to rub away the thought.

Who would have thought that bliss could be so heavy.

Sam shaved instead, though she wasn't sure why. She supposed it was so that she didn't have the leave the sanctity of the hot water right away. Sam decided to make sure to keep the razer, deciding that even if she didn't take the blade to her wrist, it would be smart to have some form of weapon on her.

She had to drip dry as she didn't think to ask Amber for a towel beforehand, and then pulled on her sweat stained bra and old white t-shirt. Her pants weren't green and weren't grey and weren't quite brown but somewhere in between and, with some difficulty from the fabric sticking to her skin, she shimmied back into them.

"Took you long enough," Amber drawled at her from her supine position on the bench. "I was starting to think you _did_ drown."

"Had to shave."

Amber snorted, "That hairy, huh?"

"We don't all get razers and makeup and hair dye every day," Sam snapped irritably at the girl, wringing out her hair and flicking it over her shoulder, spraying Amber with droplets of water in the process. She immediately regretting snarking at the girl, recognizing that Amber was just trying to joke around with her. Sam couldn't bring herself to take it back, however.

Luckily, it didn't seem to phase Amber, who merely arched a perfectly groomed blonde eyebrow at her.

"Someone needs to get laid," she commented airily with her nose in the air. "Maybe now that you aren't a wookie you can solve that problem."

Sam scowled at her and for a moment, it was tense and Amber stared at Sam and Sam stared right back. The silence was broken when Sam snorted.

"I think I'm starting to like you, Amber."

Amber's brows raised in surprise before a smile that reached her eyes appeared, and Sam decided that she liked the look on Amber's face. Funny, how even in the apocalypse, someone that seemingly had everything could look so sad. Sam supposed that some things didn't change.

"Want a tour?" Amber offered randomly when they had started walking again.

Sam looked up from the floor at the question, her ears perked. She hadn't seen anything more than hallways since her induction into the Sanctuary, and they hadn't passed any Saviors yet. Escape was still on her mind. She didn't doubt that she'd be able to outrun Amber, considering her footwear. It would just be a question of how loud the girl would scream and how quick the Saviors would come running, guns drawn.

A smile slid onto her face.

"Sure, that'd be great, Amber."

Amber nodded, her smile once again gone, and turned them in some other direction. Sam wasn't sure where her room was at this point, if they were walking towards or away from it.

"Through here is the marketplace," Amber explained, walking through a propped open set of double doors.

There were suddenly people everywhere, and it overwhelmed Sam. She had become accustomed to the solitude of her room in the hours that she had been in it, and the unexpected flow of people was startling. Not only men equipped with guns and knives and burning, angry gazes, but men in collared shirts and trousers and women, young and old, carrying baskets and goods and doing menial tasks.

There were tables set up with different people sitting and standing behind them, with notepads and pens. Well-formed lines of others presented themselves in front of the tables, and Sam furrowed her brow when she realized it looked like they were shopping.

"It's a point system here," Amber explained, and Sam just frowned in response, not understanding. "You earn points to buy things," she reiterated. "People can set their own tables if they want to sell something they make, like bread or canned goods – stuff like that."

It was crowded. Someone bumped into Sam and her breath caught in her throat. She was shocked that the Sanctuary had more than just an army. Shocked that it was made of colour and life and people that weren't raiders.

Amber must have noticed that breathing wasn't coming easy to Sam in that moment. "Are you alright?" she asked, confused.

Sam worked to steady her breath, gulping some air before answering. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She wasn't.

"Negan will probably explain the system to you better than I can," Amber replied with a flick of her wrist noncommittally, and moved on. She weaved in and out and around people, and for a moment, Sam thought about slipping away. She thought about turning and leaving, looking for an exit on her own. Amber was ahead of her enough that it would take a minute or two before she realized.

But Sam didn't. Something in her wanted to see more. The Sanctuary was more than she thought it was, and it intrigued her.

She still wanted Negan and every Savior that she came across dead, but her curiosity and the buzz of Hydromorphone made her stupid.

Curiosity never _really_ killed the cat, did it?

"… and the dining hall is through here," Amber's voice drifted back into her consciousness, and Sam quickened her pace to match Amber's.

"You can use your points to get meals in here every day as well."

Sam wasn't sure what it entailed to get 'points', and she didn't bother asking. She assumed that she wouldn't be around long enough to get or give any.

It was a large room, with an arrangement of mismatched tables and chairs filling most of it. Her mouth felt dry, and she swallowed her spit. A lot of people dined in here.

Just how many were there? This didn't even include the outpost building – _buildings_ , Sam assumed that they had more than just the one establishment that she knew of.

"We have gardens and chicken coops outside, if you were interested in seeing that," Amber chimed from behind her.

 _Outside._

Sam wouldn't be surprised if her pupils dilated at the word, she felt such a visceral reaction to it.

"I'd love to," she replied, a bit too quickly. Amber's eyebrows raised expectantly, and Sam cleared her throat.

"Like chickens that much?" her blonde friend offered, snorting at Sam's exaggerated eye roll and leading her away once more. They twisted through doorways and hallways, and in reality it was minutes, but it felt like a lifetime to Sam.

Sam remembered the wall of the dead when she first arrived; that sight was hard to forget. She hoped that there was a clear path through to the other side, one that wasn't through the main gate. It was surely heavily guarded and Sam wasn't delusional to think she'd make it through there. The dead were slow, and Sam mused to herself whether she'd be able to bob and weave through the lot of them and scale the fence on the other side without attracting too much attention.

An unlit 'Exit' sign appeared in front of them at the end of the hall, acting like a beacon to the metal door that would be Sam's freedom. Amber was talking, but Sam couldn't hear her. The blood was rushing in her ears. It'd be a miracle if she didn't pass out.

Sam looked to Amber as they neared the door. Her muscles felt tense already, and she prepared to knock out Amber the first opportunity she got.

A mixture of excitement, fear, and trepidation, she felt like she was flying. Probably partially from the hydromorphone. Sam reached the door first, and picked up her pace as she reached to shove it open. At the same time, someone pulled it from the other side, causing her to stumble and fall through the opening.

A figure loomed over her and Sam let out a strangled yelp as she crashed into them. The taller and seemingly male form grunted as they collided, reaching and grabbing her by her upper arm to steady her.

Squinting and somewhat dizzy, Sam tried to make out through the bright sun who it was.

"And just what the fuck do we have here?"

Sam froze, and she would have sworn her heart did too, before it picked back up and started to hammer away in her chest, faster than ever before.

The voice was unmistakeable, masculine and deep. It was hard to decipher if the twang was excitement or anger, or if both, which one was more prominent. He smelt like an amalgamation of leather and something minty and something masculine – aftershave? – and Sam wasn't sure if it made her feel sick or if that was another side effect from the Dilaudid.

"Negan!" Amber's gasp barely registered to her. The blood was whooshing in her ears again, and she was fixated on the older man's face. "I was just showing Sam around."

"Christ, Amber," Negan scolded, his grip tightening on Sam's arm, "I told you to bring her a fucking basket, not take the kid on a goddamn field trip. How fucking difficult were those directions?"

"Sorry." Amber was back to being meek and quiet and polite and complacent.

Sam hated it.

Hated Negan.

Anger made people stupid. Hydromorphone made Sam stupid. The medley of both was not desirable, but it was what Sam had to work with in that moment.

Sam let out a guttural yell, bringing up her leg and stomping on Negan's foot. He hissed in annoyance, and she quickly used her free hand – thankfully, the uninjured one – to swing at him. Sam heard something solid hitting and bouncing on the ground before he roughly caught her weak attempt at a punch with a boisterous laugh. His eyes were amused and Sam hated that he had perfect, straight, white teeth.

Both of her arms incapacitated, Sam's next choice was to headbutt him. Being so much smaller than Negan, it barely registered at further up than his chest. Negan quickly swung her around, encasing her with his form. He pinned both of her arms behind her with one of his, and then slung his other around the front of her shoulders and neck, forcing Sam's head to incline upwards.

Fuck. She resisted whimpering at how vulnerable she felt, pressed against him. She was stuck. Frozen.

Leant forward, he chuckled in her ear, his breath caused a shiver of fear to rip through her.

"What, done so soon? My dick's only half hard," he mocked her, and Sam felt another hot spark of anger ignite her.

"I was wondering why it felt like you had a tic tac in your pocket," she snarled, trying to twist her head to sneer at him. Sam was desperately trying to ignore the fact that she had definitely noticed the poke in her backside and had _definitely_ noticed that it wasn't comparable to a tic tac.

Negan met her angry gaze, and he looked amused again, his brown eyes boring into hers. Grinning. Waiting to see what she'd do next.

"Feisty. You have _no idea_ how much I dig that."

His voice was somehow gravelly and smooth simultaneously. Sam shivered, and it was for so many reasons that she'd be too embarrassed to admit to if anyone asked.

"Negan, I'm sorry," Amber said urgently, and Sam almost looked away from Negan when she noticed it sounded like Amber was pleading. _Almost_. "This was my fault, I thought it'd be nice to show her around."

Negan ignored Amber's words, and it pissed Sam off. He just kept his focus on her. "You gonna do one of those pathetic headbutts again if I let you go?"

Sam scowled at him and didn't reply. She considered lunging at him again when she felt his grip loosen, but decided against it. She was suddenly very conscious of the armed Saviors around them, watching her cautiously.

"Seriously, it was like a fuckin' mosquito buzzing around me, all annoying 'n' shit," he mocked her by waving his hand haphazardly, like he was swatting away an insect.

Her eye caught sight of the barbed baseball bat, laying discarded on the ground, and Sam held her tongue. Negan was still very real and very dangerous, and she was lucky that he seemed to be more amused by her than anything.

"You better get back to that room before I have to fuckin' ask you to," he snapped as soon as he took a step away from Sam. "And before I remember that you made me drop Lucille."

Sam took a step towards Amber, fully agreeable to get the fuck away from Negan, but the other blonde girl spoke up once more. "She hasn't had dinner yet," she meekly stated. Sam winced at Amber, assuming the reminder would only piss Negan off.

Negan froze momentarily as he bent down, picking up Lucille. Snatching the bat from the ground and righting himself, he grinned widely at Sam.

"Well we wouldn't want our little prisoner going hungry, now would we? Can't be treating a prisoner like a damn prisoner!"

Sam prickled at the mocking, obnoxious declaration. Striding forward, she grabbed Amber's wrist and pulled the door open, ducking inside. She could hear Negan laughing as it shut and let out an angry breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

It was Amber's turn to pull her through the corridors, practically jogging with Sam in tow, scolding her as they went.

"I can't believe you fucking did that!"

"Really?" Sam snapped, snatching her wrist from Amber and walking behind her again. "He imprisoned me because I murdered an entire outpost building and was trying to get to him." Sam didn't bother to correct herself on her exaggeration. She was angry at Negan and at Amber and mostly at herself. "Of course I'm going to keep fucking trying."

Amber froze, whipping around to stare at Sam, slack jawed and wide eyed. Sam thought she looked like a doe.

"I thought they just found you outside, alone or something," she stuttered in response.

Sam flexed her jaw, waiting for Amber's reaction. Half of her wanted Amber to hate her. Fear her. Avoid her and never talk to her again. Amber would probably just get in the way, after all, and Sam couldn't afford that. The other half of her was already attached to Amber, even if it had only been a few hours. Sam was scared and vulnerable and alone, and the blonde girl was a spotlight of sunshine in the otherwise dreary factory so far.

Amber was silent for a minute, and Sam sighed. "I'll just find my own way back," she muttered flatly, brushing past the other female.

"I still wanna be friends," Amber called out to her, making Sam stop and stare at her.

"What?"

"We've all done shit," Amber met her eyes levelly, "It's how we're all still here."

Sam didn't call her out. Didn't mock her and point out that the girl before her had definitely never shot up an outpost building full of people – most of whom she didn't know – in the middle of the night. There were things that they assuredly would _never_ have in common, and Sam was okay with that.

Sam saw one thing that they had in common, however.

They were both prisoners.

Maybe Sam was more explicitly so, but she had a sense that Amber wasn't just with Negan for his big cock. Maybe Amber wasn't forced to be with Negan, but there was something in the way that Amber looked at Negan that screamed, howled, 'TRAPPED'. She wondered if Amber would tell her one day.

Back in her room, Sam was staring out the window again. Back in her room, Sam was rolling the pill bottle between her hands again. The sun was drifting away, behind the tops of the trees, and there were no birds to be found.

'Fuck it,' she thought, popping another pill. The familiar throb in her body was returning, and after all, what did she have to lose?

Nothing. There wasn't much more she could lose, Sam supposed.

Looking out the window and thinking of Hilltop, Sam knew that there was _always_ something to lose.

Settling on her bed, Sam started to slip.

Bliss was heavy, indeed.

* * *

 **A/N:** **I know a lot of stories make Amber awful, but I empathize with her, so that probably won't happen here. If you're an Amber hater, whoops.**

 **Hope you enjoyed! I'll try to update my other story when I can, sorry guys.**

 **Please leave a review if you feel like it!**

 **-Submechanophobia.**


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